


maybe, one day.

by cool_dude



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: A Better World (Gravity Falls), Angst, Bill Cipher is a Jerk, Brain Surgery, Gen, M/M, Parallel Universes, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-13
Updated: 2017-08-13
Packaged: 2018-12-14 23:53:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11794080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cool_dude/pseuds/cool_dude
Summary: taking back one friend and keeping out the other.





	maybe, one day.

There’s a knock at the door; he flinches, feels for the gun at his belt, fingers the cold metal, waits for his heart rate to slow a bit, counts his breaths. One. Two. Three. His head may be spinning from coffee and heart palpitations and lost blood, but he manages to limp over and unlock the door.

“Fiddleford,” he breathes. It’s him for sure, but why on Earth would he be here? It’s too, too dangerous here for him; there are too many memories-

Wait. He... Ford had called him. Right?

Yes, yes _of course_ he had called him, he remembers. He had called him here because he had been  _right_ , right about the portal, right about his little ' _Muse',_ right about _everything_.

The man gives a sharp nod. He steps inside rigidly, eyes moving rapidly, skinny limbs jumping. He looks terrible- haphazard tufts of hair, the scruffy beginnings of a beard, dark shadows and ambiguous fluids covering his skin. He jumps like a flighty squirrel as Stanford closes the door behind him.

“I’m going to check your pupils, okay?” Ford’s voice cracks from underuse. He slowly pulls out a pocket flashlight and leans towards the man. Carefully, slowly, he reaches to the skin of his face, and it seems to almost shiver back from his touch. _He’s a wild animal, a feral beast. Steady yourself._

Carefully, slowly, he places his fingers around one eye, trying to ignore the growing tremors of Fiddleford’s muscles, and streams a beam of light into it- no slits, thank goodness, t _hank goodness_ \- and Fiddleford’s instinct is too much and he cries some strange inhuman sound and _leaps_ as far away as possible from Ford.

He looks up. Vulnerable. _Terrified_.

(Of _him_.)

“It’s not B- B- _that thing_ , i-is it?”

Stanford’s heart trembles.

He shakes his head. “It’s me, Fiddleford, but you can check my pupils if you'd like. In fact, I’d - I’d actually recommend that.”

F slowly moves to acquiesce, takes the flashlight with shaking fingers, and squints as Stanford lets him examine him. Every part of him _screams_ to shy away from the light, but _you have to show him you’re not a threat. Slow movements. Low voice. Don’t scare him away. He is your last chance._

The moment ends. The light drops from his fingers. Fiddleford’s wide eyes suddenly double on themselves and he slumps into Ford and his arms fall around him and Ford is caught in the embrace that a drowning man gives a piece of driftwood.

“Thank god, thank god, Stanford,” he mutters like the stutter of a broken record, and maybe he is crying because Stanford’s neck feels a little wet, but Stanford puts his arms around his friend and holds him, acts as a buttress, even though his knees are growing weaker by the moment. Sentiment never really had been Ford’s forte, but in that moment his eyes seem to forget that, and his aching body squeezes out a slow trickle of tears.  

They are, together, as wet as they would be in rain. And it does feel like rain. Like a long-awaited monsoon after a season of cracked lips and minds.

Fiddleford’s first priority, once his body begins to still, is work. Stanford obediently sits at the kitchen table while Fiddleford puts his nose to the grindstone and welds nearby. It occurs to Ford that he really shouldn’t be doing this in such an enclosed and flammable room, but when has he ever been concerned about safety?

There’s something comforting about seeing Fiddleford in his mask again. It throws Ford back, back in the dorm when he would tinker with circuit boards and piece together machines, back a few months ago when the blue of the flame would light up the reflective surface of the mask as he worked on the portal.

That same light, that same reflection bounces off of the mask as he works, and Ford can’t help but admire his fervor and remember that, well, he is a bit of a _god_ when it comes to mechanical engineering.

(you remember what happened with your last go-)

Ford doesn’t ask what he’s doing, but he’s no idiot, and taking the measurements of his skull doesn’t seem like the kind of thing one would do when building a doorknob. He’s nervous, but Fiddleford _just_ stopped shaking like a leaf, so he worries his fingers in silence, pushes his pinkie down. He scratches at a few fresh scrapes. He wonders if (hopes) it will be enough to stop Bill.

He voices no concerns. He has already doubted Fiddleford once. He’ll be damned if he lets himself do it again.

Ford leans into his touch, lets him shave a thin line of hair off silently. He closes his eyes and tries to find somewhere idyllic. He breathes in--- and then out. Steady. Steady.

He trusts him. He trusts him. He has to trust hi-

Jolting pain _pain pain_ shoots from his head, dragging across bone, slicing cleanly through like butter like a firework like scraping off skin on concrete like widening deepening cuts to make scars like that on his arms on his legs everywhere everywhere but he does not flinch back he cannot flinch back. Catch your breath. Steady.

Like a pocket, he feels his skin stretch wide open, feels the cool breath of air on every side of his scalp. Wh- What is Fiddleford do-

His stomach twists, and a cool slab slides itself right beside his skull, hooking a bit on and gnawing at the cells there. His breath catches- no, _breathe. Re- Remember to breathe._ He does, and it helps only in that it deters him from screaming.

It’s a metal plate that Fiddleford pushes up against his skull. That Fiddleford scrapes against his nerves.

Ford bites his lip, Fiddleford begins sticking and poking and sliding a thin- needle? Nail? - and oh _god_ that feels like _thread_ sliding into his skin and of course he’s had stitches before but he’s been on anesthetic and why didn’t Fiddleford- don’t doubt him; he knows what he’s doing; _he has never been wrong before._

He ties the knot. “F-Ford? Ya… ya still here?” His voice is still so, so quiet.

Ford turns around in head-splitting agony, manages a crooked smile at his surgeon, and finally releases the torrent of thoughts. “What the hell, Fiddleford.”

The man winces back. “Wh- Bill?!” He shivers, eyes frantic. “St- Stay away from me!”

“No, it’s me, Fiddleford. It’s Ford,” Ford rubs his eyes. “Proof of claim: I’m not calling you some absurd nickname, I’m not screaming, and my pupils are not slits. At least, I don’t think they are. Honest to God, I give you full permission to check.” He scowls. “I just… did you really have to cut open my scalp and insert a piece of metal? Are there not any other preventative measures we could have taken?”

He’s asked his first doubtful question and already Fiddleford’s KBPS is off the charts again. “B- Bill operates… seems to o-operate on a… a delta wave frequency, based on t-the way he i-is able to… control your body when you’re n-not conscious. T-Therefore, a delta wave inhibitor was e-easy to manufacture, b-b-”

Fiddleford shrugs sheepishly. “Harder to- to get out?”

Ford scowls. “Never really pegged you as a sadist.”

“I’m- I’m n- I’m just trying to help; Ford, you know that; I-I wouldn’t h-hurt you… i--if there was any other- other way; you’re confusing me for y-your _other friend_ ,” Fiddleford recoils. It’s not intentionally biting, but it tears into Stanford anyways and all at once the pain and humiliation and terrible terrible sense of wrongness resurfaces with new vigor.

“He’s not anyone’s friend,” he says roughly. “Never has been. Never will.” He looks up at Fiddleford again, allows himself to consider, for the first time, maybe living…. living without someone who wanted to use you. “Do you really think it will keep out Bill?”

Fiddleford draws in a shaky breath, then straightens his glasses. “I do.”

“Then… that’s good enough for me. I trust you.” He looks Fiddleford in the eyes, and Fiddleford searches for something in Stanford. Slowly, they both manage the first hints of smiles.

Maybe, one day, hewill not have to lie in order to say those words. Maybe he will throw the word- "trust"- from his tongue like it means nothing. Maybe he will laugh and sing and dance and smile without fear, without fear of anything, because he will know that _he is loved_ and that _he loves_ and that love is dependent on _nothing_. 

Maybe, one day.

**Author's Note:**

> this may or may not become a multi-chapter thing...


End file.
